The training rooms to keep the agents of the ISIS in regular form on the Observer were a rather standard fare. But that wasn't what Moria was interested in at the moment. The sound of her rebreather echoed in her ears as her casual life support suit was snug about her features. She was back on the Observer after two months or so of training at the Nexus, and was ready to visit her custodian. But before she was taken to the woman's office was told to go let off some steam here. On the wall rested a series of practice weaponry and she was eager to work out some kinks in her muscles.

She was filled with a sense of excitement at the coming events, an interesting sparring match between her and various people within ISIS' main vessel of the Observer. Truth be told, it didn't bother her that the training elements were 'bog standard' , well aside from the explosives range. She remembered an interesting day training with that Mortist fella and that nice redheaded girl one day there.

The explosions use of what was predominantly called the "Commando's Playground" had been immensely amusing to say the least. Within that range, they had both the standard holofield technology peculiar to the Federation as well as an old shuttle's hulk or two. Apparently when an ISIS shuttle needed to be scrapped it was sent there after being given a good memory wipe. Then blown up for a few weeks, to give it honorary munitions scoring before the Observer's crew pushed such off into the nearest sun.

After all, it wouldn't do for ISIS equipment to be decommissioned in the normal way.

But such was life.

Gripping her fists together, Moira shook herself out of her stupor on the side of the mat. It's looks were relative of a mandalorian battle circle, but not as uncultured as there's the echani thought to herself as she took off her gloves and used the powder there to dry her hands of any sweat. Not that there was any, such was only a byproduct when the life support suit was active, but she didn't need it as much as she used to.

Her lungs, due to the doctors care, and her forays into developing her own special skills were well on the way to mending.

Smacking the chalk off her hands she wandered into the center of the circle and started to stretch, preparing herself for whatever was to come. After all, she would be called when Crystala was ready, and not a moment before. Patience was a thing, after all.

The minutes ticked away and still no one had made any summons for Moira. Her patience was commendable as other officers and agents walked by the sparring area, a few throwing the odd glance over at the young girl and making a side comment to their fellows but none bothering to actually disturb her, something about 'Director's Pet' though that phrase was quick to get silenced by other people, worried that the person in question may actually overhear that. Before Moira could start to wonder if maybe there was a delay, a trio of people approached, one man and two women. The man was a fairly built individual, looking more like a soldier than an Intelligence Operative. The women on either side of him appeared to be twins, their brown hair tied up into neat buns on the back of their heads, their expressions identical as they both looked at Moira.

"Hello there," one of the twins spoke up, "You waiting for someone?"

Moira nodded, shifting her stance a little, feeling a little apprehensive at the strangers approaching her, unsure of their motives.

"Looks like she's got some spunk," the man chuckled before raising his own hands up into a defensive stance, "But you've got it all wrong kid. You should hold your hands up here, like this. This way you're sure to protect your face while also still having your hands ready to pounce whenever an opportunity presents itself."

Twin two laughed whimsically. "You've seen too many action holos. That's not how it works."

"No?" He raised an eyebrow before looking back at Moira. "Okay then, I'll prove it to ya. C'mon kid, throw a punch." Moira hesitated, looking between the three. The twins were simply smiling, as though knowing what was coming while the man seemed genuinely ready to take whatever she could throw in his direction. Perhaps it was because she wasn't sure how serious he was being that the punch she eventually did throw was so easily blocked aside with a simple gesture from the man. "Aw, c'mon, throw it like ya mean it. Trust me, I can take the worst you've got."

Trying again, Moira tried to fake him out and nearly succeeded if not for her hesitation that still gripped her. "Hey, not bad. You know you're way around a brawl I reckon!" He grinned approvingly. "But I know you can do better than that. C'mon." He waved his fingers, gesturing for Moira to come at him. "Don't hold back." Figuring it would be a good way to pass the time, Moira finally took him seriously and approached, this time with a quick leg sweep which he barely managed to dart away from, only to fall into another feint as Moria grabbed him while he was recovering and hip-tossing him to the mat. He landed with a thud. "Not bad," he admitted, "But I shoulda warned ya, we weren't going to hold back either."

"We?" The word was barely out of her mouth when the twins were suddenly descending upon her. Moira dodged quickly to avoid them but quickly found herself flanked by the two women as they worked in tandem with one another, each one reading the others' moves and somehow coordinating their efforts in an unspoken manner. It was all Moira could do to dodge and parry their attacks before the man was suddenly back on his feet and charging at her again. In a flurry of punches and kicks, the four of them sparred, easily forcing the girl back as they outnumbered her and tried to use those numbers to outmaneuver her. Thankfully, her small stature and prior training meant she wasn't a complete pushover as she managed to land a few opportune strikes and maintain a strong position over the three of them. In the swirling melee, Moira caught the occasional flash of blue though she couldn't be sure what it was but suddenly the fight seemed to become a great deal more difficult as something managed to tag her leg, narrowly missing the soft spot right behind the knee.

Suddenly it became apparent that Moira was now fighting not three, but four people, which hardly seemed fair. Why would someone jump in on their side? Realizing there was little chance, Moira attempted to disengage, parrying a kick before trying to duck away. Something grabbed her wrist and she suddenly found herself being tossed into the air before landing on her back. She opened her eyes to see the familiar visage of Crystala looking down at her, her smiling face framed in her usual blue hair. "Not bad," she began, appraising her performance as though she had been there the whole time. She glanced at the three other agents and bowed at them, a gesture the trio clearly weren't expecting from someone of her position, or nature. "Thank-you for your assistance."

"Ah, no problem Director," the man responded, scratching the back of his head, unsure of how to handle the gesture.

"Glad to be of help Ma'am," the twins added in unison.

Turning back to Moira, Crystala extended a hand to her to help her back up to her feet. As she did so, she asked, "There's one thing you forgot to do at the start of that fight. Can you tell me exactly what that is?" It wasn't meant to be a trick question, but the answer would be something that would hopefully forever stick with Moira for the rest of her life.

"Dagger of the ISIS? No, I am the hand that wields it!" - Director-General Endivain
"The quickest way to find the needle, burn the haystack!"

Crystala's interruption was, while not unwelcome, was not as uncommon as one thought compared to the first two months of royal guard training. Neither was her manners in regards to her Custodian. In fact, Moira held the woman in quite a bit of high regard. While not taking her eyes off the woman she gave her a slight nod of her head, acknowledging her presence, seeking out her presence in the force tentatively with the rawness of one still new to many things. Despite the doctor's tenant's on how to combine the ability of sensing life on the subconscious level she had not quite combined it yet with the other abilities like precognition that was indicative of force users necessary to form what was known as a talent to others as The Harrowing. Such, in her estimation would take weeks of more desensitization training. But soon, she would change that weakness.

Taking Crystala's hand she stood up and disengaged, then bowed her head slightly to the other gentlemen that assisted in the initial attack. Breathing deeply as inside she felt the peculiar sensation of ice and lightning flux down the scope of her spine before acclimating that single jarring sensation as she tapped into the white current. Slowly building the tenant's of a functional force structure with the energies outside her body instead of within. For now, only calling upon an illusion as she spoke that began to form a hazy undercurrent around her boots, and slowly spread along the floor in all directions. "Short answer, I was not aware of my surroundings as I should and didn't trust what I was being told by my instincts."

'Or being open to the force.' went unspoken.

With those words she began to build the illusion higher, making her form step back on silent steps as in her place a mirage of her image speaking to crystala in respectful tone. This was dangerous, as so far her use of the White Current was like the differences in voltages, tapping into a Direct Current of the tumultuous parts of the force that spread like fire over skin comparative to the calm serene nature of regular force use. And yet, the sound of her voice was carried at such a time in the illusion as molecules vibrating in the air. "However, If you're asking for a tactical analysis I only relied on the assumptions my physical senses were leading me to believe what I viewed the present circumstances to be. Which is rather negligent of me as the last month and a half outside of pilot training I have been blind, deaf, and desensitized to the world. I failed to look underneath the facade of the situation,or to check the surroundings as thoroughly as possible. Nor did I foresee anything but a twinge in the wrongness of what I sensed. This can only be my failure." The illusion gave a slight nod in supplication as her real form did what her spur of the moment impulse told her to do as her illusion provided the distraction. Otherwise she would have kept the verbiage rather short instead of a long winded reply.

Slipping behind the one twin who had knocked her down she smiled impishly and winked in Crystala's direction. Surely she had seen through this false facade, of that there was no doubt in her mind.

With a bit of a crook to her lips, she reached out and tapped the largest one on the shoulder lightly and was gratified at the swift reaction of the man spinning around to lash out at what he thought was nothing but air. Locking the arm, in a grapple she stepped back with one foot twisting her center of gravity and spun him around before harmlessly throwing him in the direction of the open floor instead of with any force towards the open wall as she let the illusion drop. The man of course cursed and stumbled without toppling over taking a few steps before regaining his balance. Such was only natural to the man due to his combat experience, and Moira had only intended to startle him a bit, not initiate another bout.

The man seemed to arch an eyebrow at her; stared a moment, then shrugged before raising his fists in a waiting position.

Reaching behind her she slipped her hand into the backpouch and pulled out a small rounded object. It was a simple device she was supposed to be studying and one thing she liked to keep around and held it out to the man on an open palm."Holoprojector for your thoughts?"

The man got a bewildered look, and then back at where she had been. "Huh, most people don't fight with such tools around. What gives? Wanna go?"

Moira shook her head in a negative and out the device away in the life support ship's pouch as the tang of the revreather sounded in her ears."Tech junkie of a sorts and," she shrugged again. "Well... It's not really my decision. You know?"

Then she chuckled as she arched her chin slightly in Crystala's direction. Miss Crysta, these guys are really good sports and kinda fun. That was such a good warm up. Are they going to be remaining with us further today?" She chucked a thumb at the one in a waiting position. "This one seems as good as that DT Major that spent the past month giving us nightmares in the training ring."

Sighing deeply, she began a breathing exercise and looked upon her current Custodian. Her gaze softening, and her eyes crinkled slightly with a warmth they usually lacked. "But I must say, It really is good to see you today Lady Crystala."

It was good to see that Moira had correctly assessed the mistakes made and Crystala nodded in response to her assessment before watching with some amusement at the use of a small holoprojector to decoy her position. Deception was one of those things that helped give an edge in combat, usually to get the drop on the other person. A holoprojector, while useful, did suffer from some significant limitations, usually its inability to actually move, or create a solid object. To that end, Crystala preferred approaches much like what was employed just now, a common trick of most trades: use a distraction, usually one or more people to distract the target and then have the skilled assassin or thief commit the deed against the mark before dispersing. The biggest advantage of that approach was, done well, no one would be the wiser and no one had to wait for the mark to disappear down a secluded alleyway away from prying eyes. That said, it wasn't perfect either and had its own shortcomings and counters that could render it ineffective.

"Truth be told, I only was passing by to come meet you when I encountered these three," Crystala admitted when asked if they'd be sticking around. Looking between the three operatives, she shrugged, "If you're willing to stick around, I'm sure you could probably teach her more than I ever could."

Twin one laughed whimsically at the compliment. "With all due respect, I sincerely doubt that."

Crystala smiled just a little. "You never know. Being where I am, I don't get to flex my muscles as often as I once did." While not entirely true, she was also willing to take this opportunity to see the quality of agents being developed from the academy.

"Well," the man began, rubbing his nose for a moment as he mulled over a few possibilities in his mind. "If you're going to be an agent then one of the biggest things you need to learn isn't combat but actually blending in and being able to survey things and other people without making it obvious that you're doing that." He turned around to face twin one, exposing his back to Moira. "So, I'm going to strike up a conversation with..." he trailed off, suddenly realizing he didn't actually know any of the women he had been teamed up with.

"Liz," she replied, extending her hand out in greeting.

He took it and gently kissed the back of it. "Grant," he returned.

"Beth," twin two chimed in. Seeing him raise his eyebrows, they both said in unison, "So when Dad wanted to call both of us at once, all he had to say was 'Liz'beth.'"

"Ah makes sense." Looking over his shoulder, he let Moira introduce herself as well. Crystala didn't bother throwing her name out there for obvious reasons. "Okay Moira, I want you to try and attack me when you think you see an opening as I talk with Liz here."

Moira furrowed her brow a little. "But you know its coming."

"True, but I can't see you without turning around."

"Plus," Liz began, stepping in close to Grant with a sultry look on her face, "We can be very distracting." Beth also closed in likewise and it was almost amusing to see Grant's face turn a shade redder as he had no idea just what he had gotten himself into. Crystala watched, quite amused at the spectacle as his talk was less of a conversation and more on the verge of being lusted over by two admittedly attractive women. If they were out in the field, they probably don't even need Moira at this point, she mused, figuring the pair could just as easily slit Grant's throat right now, or slip him some poison either by a microsyringe or even just a few pressure points.

Moira waited a few moments, possibly just to let Grant sweat it out some more as he started to find his words and actually engage in conversation now. When Moira finally did make her move, she was swift and closed the gap quickly but Grant reacted suddenly, wheeling around and reaching for Moira's attacking arm. Moira was able to react, cancelling her attack and instead retreating to go on the defensive as the two squared off. Grant dropped his guard almost immediately and smiled at the expression on Moira's face. "That was pretty good." Looking at the twins, he added sheepishly, "All three of you."

"How did you see me?" Moira asked, looking around. The training area was a fairly large open space with people walking by here and there and other open training areas set up, divided from the main walkway by low walls which Moira thought she had used to keep herself hidden from the mirrors that lined many of the far walls. Grant had his back to the mirror in their particular training area so there shouldn't have been any way for him to have been able to see her.

He gestured to an R-2 series astromech droid that was standing motionless nearby. It's body was painted a very glossy and reflective black and its head plated in what could only be assumed a polished gold which was likewise very reflective. In it, though not the best quality, one could see their reflection, distorted as it was by the droid's cylindrical body. "First rule of spycraft, always have your sight lines established. If you can do that, then the only reason you get dropped on is because you failed to get all your sight lines set up-"

"Heh, nice try ladies." He shot a sideways glance over to Crystala as he added, "There are some people who don't even need mirrors and reflective surfaces to help them spot incoming danger, a sixth sense. Probably practiced with a blindfold on as people attacked them."

"I've heard of people who can do that," Crystala began, feigning ignorance for whatever it was worth. "So, I suppose the lesson here is that, while there are elements in the environment that may be out to harm you, there are also elements that may provide assistance or prove beneficial while still allowing you to remain inconspicuous if used properly." Looking at Moira, she asked, "What else do you see in the environment around us that may either aid you or hinder you?"

Before the exercise commenced Moira gave a mental sigh of relief as she realized Grant had accepted the offered suggestion of the holoemitter being responsible for her illusion and disappearing act.

Her use of the white Current was still being explored so she had pulled the device as a means of offering an explanation that it seemed the man had accepted. She pondered a moment, if the Trainers at the Nexus on the Nemesis might have some more resources on how the reclusive Fallanasi used it. Though she could say any other "parlor tricks" of hers was ultimately useless when she tapped into it. Leaving quite a vulnerability as she was limited purely to her base physical capabilities.

All she had to do was supply the distraction and let the man's mind come to a suitable conclusion on its own. Filling in the gaps as best it could with the equivalent information provided.

Such was an aspect of human nature that was quite able to be exploited and she was glad for it. Then as the postulated exercise of using the environment had begun, she intentionally limited herself from any enhancement.

Though when it was pointed out she had missed the droid she wanted to kick herself,l before offering the man a smile. He was being a good sport, "Well for starters, I want to say to the girls: nice try to Tit-notize the male. The greatest asset in an environment is the social element." she smiled in theirs and crystala's direction. "Poor Grant, has quite some remarkable resistance."

"Ahem." Moira saw the man cough once or twice with a bit of embarassment.

She intentionally disregarded it and continued, sabbac face in place."Sadly, if Liz'Beth over there wasn't taking active measures to distract him, an approach for a silent take down, dependent on circumstances, could be determined by such hard-working girls as an attempt at boxing them out of their catch."

The echani hybrid felt a small crook come to the corner of her lips. "Of course women hate it when that happens. Right girls?"

She saw Liz give a smile and come up to behind Grant encircling her arms around his neck as she took the opportunity to lightly rest her chin on his shoulder as her assets lightly brushed the male from behind. Skinship of that sort was an important part of spycraft and Moira's could swear she could feel the amusement the female agent had, radiating off her in waves as she purred out a reply, "Oh, of course Dear, we girls absolutely hate that."

The echani girl's quirk of her lips broadened to a full smile at that, a quick glance in Crystala's direction was accompanied by a false-whispered sidebar the others could overhear."Oh she's Good, Lady Crystala."

Not one to be left out of the teasing Beth seemed to encroach on Grant's personal space. Laying the side of her head on the the man's shoulder, her eyes visibly seemed to sparkle at the visible discomfort the male was under. "Oh don't worry Dear, we're always good, but we're better as a matched set."

Grant coughed a few times, a moment later the twins disentangled themselves from him. Stepping back from his side as quickly as they came. Clearing his throat loudly he glanced at the Director, "Clearly those two are ranked among the more competent of ISIS' assets Director. They're quite scary."

Beth have a mock pout, "Awww, is the male a little frightened?"

"The male is absolutely terrified, ma'am." Grant deadpanned. "But you were saying?"

Moira's smile crew a bit wider, "The basic principle of using the environment to one's advantage when stalking a target is to make the approach as easily as possible. As Grant noted before, sight lines are important but setup time and coordination is more important when working with others. I'll divide them into the social tenets first but in the end they boil down to how to improvise two to three basic strategies and their permutations."

Reaching behind herself, she took a moment to stretch out her arms by clasping her palms together and lifting upwards. Feeling the slight burn of her deltoids and the back of her Triceps. "The first strategy is basically, Distract, improvise, and overcome for more covert takedowns.

This means if I focused on the human elements in the room I could have decided to, by working out ahead of time for a mark, went and had a slap fight with Liz." she gave the woman a wink."This would have allowed a three way deception to let Beth hit him with a neurotoxin or poison from behind as all three left the scene after a bunch of hair pulling."

Liz smirked, "Might have been fun; But without the human element?"

She ignored Beth's comment of uttering the snippet that 'three ways sound fun as well' to get a rise out of Grant.

"Preparation wise , I could have preprogrammed a droid to pass by and explore or short circuit and used that as the necessary distraction. But such would require setup time and the team to lure the mark to advantageous territory for the takedown. Not exactly the best plan in certain settings like parties."

"Any other covert ways?"

"Tool use such as a visual cloak would have avoided such things."

"We don't usually have Such things on hand."

Moira blinked thinking to the stygium crystal shard she had in the webbing pouch. The one she was supposed to study at odd times. Technically she felt she could improvise a cloaking belt or marquee of sorts with a little preparation or used other... Possibilities.

However, outside the Nexus, where DT's and RG's were trained; the old chambers that dark jedi had trained back when the Federation had only the Nemesis, it seemed that feigned ignorance seemed to be the status quo as she took a cue from The Director's playbook and blithely continued on. "True enough I suppose, but then again inconspicuousness never really lasts against a guarded opponent as has been demonstrated. There certainly detriment to the environment as the amount of people, lack of crowds to move in, etc. However with more overt action other options come up."

"Elucidate?" Grant said with an arched eyebrow.

"With a little preparation, things like fire suppression systems can be utilized." she stated succinctly. Like tools , with a stun charge, or even something simple as throwing something at them. A team could improvise more then just one person to change the environment in some manner so the mark was reacting to an environmental stimuli as the distraction utilized."

'Her own mind added in a few other options she could use. 'Like Fire; I could probably use combustion to throw some fireballs at people, or de materialize the marks heart with a close miss, or slattack from afar with an ice spear. I still can't do anything like that with electrical based energies like force lightning to save my life yet, not even in concept for tutaminis or to make a simple stun charge. Chaos, that Will probably take a lot longer to develop to a sufficient level to get anywhere close to being able to be taught the Maelstrom ability Guards know as it's not my primary or one of my secondary aspects.'

She shook her head to get back on task. ""As long as the Mark is reacting to something else you have a better chance in the takedown. It's like someone else's saying I know: to find the needle , burn a haystack. But more as If the needle gets punted into a snips dispenser at the right moment, to be broken and never seen again. If not strategy two comes in." The girl's gaze flicked to Crystala for just a moment before reorienting her attention on the twins for the next question posed.

"Oh, and what is that?" Beth asked.

She smiled, and gave her answer slowly to stress her words. "Overkill of course."

That got a bit of laugh out of the other woman as Moira turned to Grant. "You do raise a good point about a sixth sense of sorts. I mean, those Togruta and Twi-Leks tend to have an almost Radar like ability to sense vibrations with those lekku. Something about subharmonic vibrations of movement in the air they pick up with their horns or lekku."

The man blinked, "Erh, yeah. Forgot about those."

She continued on, intentionally foisting the misunderstanding of not being 'aware' of his earlier allusion to Lady Crystala's other abilities. Perhaps later in a private training room she might be able to see what her Guardian had up her sleeve in those abilities as a better workout for them both. Though she thought personally she would be wiped to the floor at the very least. Much like her ancestor General Yusanis was with the Jedi Revan.

That was one family story she didn't want repeating as such, but she analyzed her chances of not dying if Crystala wasn't mad, or pressed into a corner to be ... a hopeful eight in ten.

Still, She blithely continued on despite Grant's waivering as if the topic of conversation was to head in this direction all along. "Then there's species of humans or near humans that have the ability to see in shifted spectrums like Ultraviolet or Infrared. Those are difficult ones. Worse type to face though is still some of the stranger ones that literally are nothing but nasty pieces of work when enraged. Creatures of species that could kill you as soon as look at you with extending worm arms of muscle like the Gen'Dai... Thankfully those are mostly peaceful. But there's a few more species out there to look out for with even a fifth or sixth, or potentially seventh sense of sorts outside of the normal touch, taste, sight, or sound. or smell."

She shrugged, her gaze roving over the three agents to return back to Crystala. "So what's next on the agenda,Lady Crystala?"

It seemed Moira was eager to keep learning and practicing, kids always having so much stamina to continue on indefinitely as soon as they latched onto something they found remotely interesting. Crystala glanced discretely at a chrono on a nearby wall and then at the three operatives who were still present. Mindful that they probably ran tight schedules, Crystala bowed slightly to them and said, "Thank-you for your help today. I believe I can take it from here."

"Pleasure was ours," the twins added in unison. Wishing Moira the best, and no small amount of good luck on whatever challenge Crystala was going to throw her way next.

As the trio walked off, Crystala mused under her breath, "Good to see the level of talent this agency has developed is still top notch." It was reassuring that she could randomly pluck some people out of the entire staff and pay witness to the level of skill she came to expect out of them. She was sure that the three of them were trying their hardest to impress her and while she didn't outright say such, she made a mental note to have commendations placed on their files, mostly as an earmark for later in case she needed people with their particular talents. But not right now, right now she had to figure out what to do next with Moira.

"Let's head to one of the other rooms," Crystala said as she started walking away, gesturing with her hand for Moira to follow after the three other agents were no longer within sight. "I believe it's time we applied what you learned so far into something a little more practical." They walked through the training center, passing by a firing range where live ammunition exercises were taking place. Crystala took a moment to glance at some of the individuals firing down the range. A lot of them had fairly decent aim, able to hit the holo targets very close to the center. She suppressed a laugh but was unable to suppress the smile that came with it. Moira noticed- she could be incredibly perceptive sometimes- and asked what was so amusing. "Just thinking that a certain perfectionist sniper that I know probably would be less than impressed with the performance in the range."

Maybe calling Eri a 'perfectionist' was a little far fetched. Perfectionists usually went to the nth degree for everything they did while this particular sniper only went to that level when it came to her skill at arms. Still, one had to admire the level of skill she possessed, Crystala herself was hardly a skilled shot with even a blaster pistol, her scores at the academy just barely passable and she hadn't improved much since then. They continued past the range, Crystala knowing she was far and away not the person to be trying to impart practical knowledge with firearms. Eventually they reached a door that lead to a small waiting room of sorts, a prep room with gun racks filled with various firearms, weapons including training swords, stun batons and even armour though most of it was limited to simple helments, arm and leg guards and breastplates. There was also another door inside the room along with a window that gave a view of a much larger room beyond.

Inside the larger room was a mock town, shells of buildings were set up, arranged in a simple pattern like any town with streets and avenues criss-crossing all which ways. "This room is used for all sorts of training scenarios from hostage rescues to full on firefight simulations and even just more mundane spycraft training," Crystala began explaining as she gestured to the window. Moving her hand to a switch, she also adjusted the lighting in the room. As the lights dimmed, lights automatically started to come on within some of the fake buildings. "We can simulate time of day and even weather patterns if we so choose. It's not perfect, but it's something." Turning to Moira, she explained what the next part of the day would entail. "Anyways, for this next exercise, it's basically going to be an over-elaborate game of game of tag. You'll start outside of town near the signpost that hangs over the road there," she pointed to a pair of metal sign posts near the entrance to the next room that. Bridging the two posts was a sign that read "SimShantyTown", someone evidently having taken the time to messily spraypaint very crude words in basic on the metal post and no one had bothered to try and clean it off or change it to something more professional looking.

"I'll set the timer for three minutes and when you hear a buzzer go off, your goal will be to find me and tag me either using one of these tagging blasters or one of the other stun weapons here." She walked over to a gun rack and picked up a blaster, checking the weight of it in her hand for a moment and checking the charge level before adding, "My objective will be to tag you however I won't be able to fire my weapon until you've either fired yours first or it's been established you've made the first move."

"First move, as in me making an attack?" Moira asked, making sure she understood the concept correctly.

"Precisely. There's a rudimentary set of sensors that are configured to know when an attack is made. With blasters, its easy because the instant the trigger on a blaster is pulled, that's the sign of an attack being made. For things like swords, knives and the like, the sensors will detect the acceleration of the weapons and use that to determine if a strike has been made, so I'd be careful swinging. That said, only my blaster will be disabled." She smiled, "My hands and feet are still fair game."

"What about a time limit?"

"You've got ten minutes once the buzzer goes." Crystala made the adjustments in the computer before turning back to the weapon rack. Taking an underarm holster, she strapped it on and holstered the blaster. It fired a weak charge but it was easy to tell if one had been tagged, being struck by one of the shots akin to someone shocking you with a few minutes worth of static electricity buildup, along with a good, solid jab. She gave Moria time to select whatever gear she wanted before opening the door to the training area and stepping through. Moira took her place and Crystala started the three minute timer. "Force be with you," she smiled as she walked into the ramshackle town, disappearing from sight as she went down the first bend.

Moira gave a slight wave in each of the three Agents direction as they left; feeling a bit apprehensive on what the future might bring at their jibes of what tests the Director might be bringing her way later.

It wasn't long before they came to a range, and she had to give the men and women practicing there a discerning eye."Just thinking that a certain perfectionist sniper that I know probably would be less than impressed with the performance in the range."

"To be fair it seems they are competent at the short to short to mid ranges, Lady Crystala. However, their far end of mid ranges and long ranges do need a little work. As it is, I think that even I could benefit by learning from a qualified sniper, I'm only passing in regards to the ranges of a DC-17 myself." She gave a rather winsome smile wondering when she might get back her old weaponry, she had to check it in every time she visited the Observer into the main armory, worse she could only maintain it in a small room there. That wasn't a big concern, it's just that she used to use weapon maintenance as a hobby to calm her nerves in the night sometimes and she didn't like waking up the roomies. "Any sniper that's stayed in your mind must certainly be good."

When they passed by the range to enter the holding area her gaze passed over the simple racks of equipment. Eyeing them carefully as the Director began her explanation of where they were.

She began to be worried as the Director's explanation's continued; securing a few bits of equipment, two blaster pistols for the undoubtedly close quarters the shanty town would be working in, a knife or so, as well as a few other she stuck into the webbing of her life support suit she secured a few other things. Nothing, dangerous, but a few bits of cordage and other odds and ends like a plasma torch she found nearby along with a crowbar from what oddly enough looked like a maintenance locker and not from the normal racks.

You could never beat the classics, after all.

As she saw the Director change a few settings on the board to dim the lights of the shanty town ahead; Moira slipped close enough to lean upon the housing of the machine. Stretching her senses deep into the circuitry to the kernel to create the link she wanted as her Technometry came into play. She would never be as good as Mikka was at the electronics but her introduction to the skill as well as the necessity of using it to access everything from the training computers while blind and deafened had enhanced her ability to work with the living.

Droids were still a little tough, though she had a lot easier time with them then anything else.

A maintenance request to the buffer, filed by a code got her into the terminals local frame enough to check if the range itself had any form of linked surveillance from holo receivers, and she gained an impression there were several conduits of such within the SimShanty. The tactical decision would be to keep those lines of holofootage open, in order to track Crystala through the mock city from above, even in the darkness their thermals would be effective.

'But such would be cheating, and she hungered a bit for a fair match.'

So with a lilting twist to impose her will upon them she initiated a maintenance loop of the holocameras that would last a good thirty minutes as the computer tested each one in tandem while switching off the recording function. It wouldn't do to not bring everything to the table with Crystala, though the older woman's victory was almost guaranteed if the girl could press her to take things more seriously. But that didn't mean Moira wanted more of Crystala's abilities recorded in some fashion if she could help it. As her Guardian, the woman was technically the equivalent of a Matron of her Family, even if at 18 the echani girl would have to decide to grant her and Luciana honorary status in the house of Yusanis when she took the leadership of her clan. Though it wasn't much of one with less then six members thought to be alive, and several others missing.

Though truth be told, she didn't matter if the Director or her sister were made honorary members later. It's not like her family was concerned with 'purity' of the Echani race. Past generations loving who they preferred, why her mother was half kiffar, and her grandmother on that side had been half Umbarran with a dash of Sephi.

In short, pedigree was not really a factor as much as a concern of fidelity.

The Yusanis didn't judge even if truth be told it left her genetics to be a bit of a mutt at times. Not that she would allow anyone to call her that. But, as she viewed Crystala as an honorary Matron of the Family it was her duty as the heir to the leadership of the Family to protect Crystala's secrets, and the young girl had no doubts this exercise might be taken seriously enough that a few might be used.

She also didn't want that caviat of Crystala needing to wait to be attacked in order to strike back.

That was something that she wanted to 'Even Stephen' as soon as possible and she had just the idea how to level the playing field.'

The only other changes she made to the settings, making sure to keep the night feature was to set a timer to activate the mist machines of the room in five minutes, as well as a delayed timer to lower the temperature a few minutes after that. She figured as the computer listed the towns having water systems as well it would be possible to make things a little more misty to set the pace. Her life support suit's dark black and grey tones would be enough armor, and camouflage under such circumstances.

So smiling to herself, she nodded as the program changes were implemented and Crystala noted the time limit. A quick blurb to her chrono set it for thirteen minutes as the timer to start counted down as Crystala ran off. She gave herself a moment to reflect upon the woman's words about the Force being with someone, and mentally wished her the same before the Echani amusingly snorted at the sign, getting a slight laugh as the scrawled writing betrayed a sense of humor that was apparent even outside of Third and Fourth Fleet.

'She wondered how that Admiral was doing.'

When the timer reached Zero she took a moment to close the goggles that came to her suit, and activated one of its training functions as it was built off a modified EX-2 CCIS (Combat Cloak Infiltration Suit). Letting the visual cloak spread down across her body. On silent padded steps she sprinted off, but not in the direction that Crystala had meandered, mentally pulsing a switch to her chrono's timer to calibrate it to the ten minute mark as it started counting down.

By Nine Minutes and thirty seconds she had entered the first set of building nearby, heading to the food processing kitchen to see a bunch of manikins at the table. She ignored them and turned on the water of the sink as she ravaged the cupboards for what she was looking for, finding a small can of recaf she quickly opened and poured out the contents of; a bit of long expired dust she gathered up and put in a small scrap of cloth from the set table. If she could mark Crystala with such later, she might be able to track the scent of the sludgy long expired mix.

Maybe she had found the secret stash of someone who frequented this place which was left forgotten or perhaps it was a matter of the range master wanting to be as realistic as possible. Whatever the case she used thirty seconds to set up an advantage with the recaf tin, improvising a small contraption under the sink's running water. She did this by spanning a bit of wire across the sink and using a bit of cordage to bind and balance one of the knifes with sensors on the blade. With the position it was set up in, the water would fill the tin which would then tip over and let the water out before the tension of the wire brought it back into place. Because the knife was attached to the tin it would set up the blade's sensors to go off every thirty seconds; creating false positives for Crystala to sense.

Smiling at her handiwork she rushed from place to the next house; setting the water on for noise creation before running from that to the outside. A bit of free running brought her to the lip of one of the roofs as she gained enough height on top of a three story tall cistern, using the framework of its supports as cover to take a gander at her surroundings before checking her chronometer. It read about 8:00 minutes. Below her the mist machines had now turned on as the temperature dropped. Filling the streets, and a bit of the homes with shattered windows with an ever pervading cold , and bitter mist. A quick espying of her surroundings netted her a clear line of sight from an aerial view of the simulation room.

Breathing deeply she muffled her thoughts and turned the attention inwards, driving her aura upwards to her eyes as she activated three different abilities.

Those being the Life Sense, that was imperative to begin her studies of Force Healing... something she was beginning to show talent for, at least enough to deaden the pain of a strike a bit, with some regenerative studies for others still out of her reach. But such would come in time as it went hand in hand with a second ability she struggled for; Being stealthy in the force enough that small changes of internal manipulations wouldn't resonate outwards.

The third ability was a trigger to enhance a bit of her hermetic legacy from her ancestors came to the fore. The secondary rods and cones formations of the Kiffar and the Umbarran half breeds tended to receive but under normal circumstances couldn't activate... without a slight built of help that she had been shown how to do. Without those dormant secondary structures; she'd be rather weak and would take another two or three months of study just to begin shifting her vision into other spectrums.

In short, Like a movie that was Popular with an Arnaldo Swharzsegger, she began to see like a Predator with bits of infrared and ultraviolet tones about her vision, ready to note the Auric Theels of other life forms in the area as her active Life Sense went up. Her enhanced hearing made her ears thud with the sound of her own heartbeat. These actions serving synergistically well to Broaden the acuity of her senses though she believed she would only be able to keep this up for a minute or two before her focus combined with her stealth waivered.

Her mind absently noted two to three different options for her to make a leap of faith... one being a smaller cistern with an open top and about five feet of water on an adjoining houses rooftop, the other being a pile of straw made out of soft plastifoam that seemed to be placed in one of the markets between the alleyways. The third she didn't want to try, was the farthest away and would require a bit of a force assisted leap to get to. Something that would almost certainly be sensed by her quarry.

It grated her nerves a bit, but she rationalized this was not a game of cat and mouse, but rather a game of a Young Nexu being played with by an older wiser female of the breed. She doubted she would get anywhere close to anything but a varying degree of success. She was probably going to see even chances of Crystala's going through walls trick which had startled Aunt Lucy so much.

Nope. She really had no hope of winning this game. But she would be damned if she didn't get at least one or two good strikes on her adversary. Her pride wouldn't allow for anything less.

With her chrono reaching 7: 35 she began to scan the shanty town below for varied heat sources. Her eyes searching for Crystala in the Mists as her body poised to make the leap of faith in whatever direction she could find containing the first sign of the older Hunter.

Roaming the quiet streets, Crystala kept a casual pace as though she were a tourist walking through the quiet town. She checked her chrono and, reaching the town square, she stayed beneath the canopies of the makeshift shop vendors and casually glanced at the fake wares for sale. By now, Moira was probably reaching for the highest ground she could find in order to try and find the lone woman wandering about. It might have seemed like an easy challenge at first, and to some extent, it would have been but, when the seven minute mark was reached, the once quiet town suddenly came alive. Speakers wired all over the place started generating noises typical of what one would hear in a town, for instance in the town square where all the vendors were set up, the sounds of a bustling market were playing. Elsewhere, sounds more typical would play.

At the same time, modified protocol droids with synthskin emerged from numerous locations, all of them wearing a variety of clothing and dressed to look like random civilians of various species. They engaged in seemingly random conversation with one another to help add to the illusion of the town actually being alive and real. It was one thing to practice in an empty area, but in the field, life was seldom so easy and for agents or even commandos to operate, they had to learn to avoid contact with civilians, be it just not being spotted or not inadvertently shooting them when the blasters started flying.

To the untrained eye, the droids appeared, for the most part, like real people though their lack of fluid movements made them fairly easy to pick out. The synthskin was also heated so that even IR scopes would be unable to pick them out from other living, breathing beings. Whenever full realism was sought, the trainers would replace the droids with real people who would play the role of civilians or targets for the people being trained, whatever the situation merited. No doubt Moira would have a lot of things to look at now and more people to try and sort though in order to find her, not to mention that there was at least one training dummy with blue hair, an homage to the Director though Crystala figured someone dressed that droid up that way as an excuse to entertain the idea of "accidentally" shooting the Director. She had no proof of this of course, but to have a droid partially look like someone felt more like an insult than a compliment in Crystala's mind.

Suddenly her blaster made a barely audible beep, telling her that it was free to fire from this point on. Crystala frowned but didn't otherwise react. She didn't sense any danger nor did she feel Moira's presence nearby. Coupled with the fact that there was no gunshot and the lack of freaking out droids- as they were programmed to act like people normally would if someone started shooting or brandishing a weapon in broad daylight- told Crystala something else was going on. So either she got startled by the droids and attacked one of them by accident, thus falsely registering an attack against me. She thought about that possibility for a long moment and then dismissed it. Moira was much better than that and wouldn't lash out in surprise unless provoked or attacked. "Or she simply attacked a wall or post just to level the playing field," she concluded. She smiled to herself, amused that Moira felt the need to not operate under a handicap like that.

Continuing to walk through the market square, Crystala continued to act casual, knowing that looking around would be a dead giveaway to the trained eye. Even with the distinctive hair, it was still possible to blend in so long as she did what the locals did. Short of walking awkwardly like them, she thought as one of the dummy droids walked past, nodding at her in greeting as it did so. Walking to the edge of the market, she picked up a tin can from a table and walked down a side street where a handful of droids were milling about, one sweeping, another shaking out a sheet from a second story window. She walked past and took a right which would lead her to another clearing, this one a tad smaller as it lead to a makeshift spaceport that had only one landing pad and a two story reception hall. On the landing pad was parked a shell of Lambda-class shuttle, it's top and side wings stunted just so it would fit in the admittedly small room. It was pretty much the end of the line for Crystala though she could loop around and take the far path to return to the town entrance as a moving target was always harder to track than a stationary one but she suspected that continuing back would only increase the likelihood of being spotted if Moira was still perched up on her vantage point.

"Dagger of the ISIS? No, I am the hand that wields it!" - Director-General Endivain
"The quickest way to find the needle, burn the haystack!"

When things began to move and noise began to echo throughout the mock town through the cold mists, Moira almost lost her grip and fell from her perch as her senses were assaulted with a vast over-saturation. Her senses reeled as she pulled back on the Force, bringing herself back to a normal level of equilibrium.

It seemed she wasn't the only one who had a few tricks up their sleeves. Or rather, in the program.

With her head ringing she spread her arms wide, picked her landing zone and pushed off. Her descent slowing as if gravity was resisted by wires before landing within the hay. Cursing silently she grimaced at the pounding in her temples. It felt like she had been run over by an airspeeder and she had to grit her teeth as she reached into the force to deaden the pain.

Cursing mildly as the pain began to recede, she blinked once or twice before shaking her head to clear the cobwebs. Pulling herself from the fake hay about her she got to her feet, the stealth cloak flickered as it reformed about her as the field had been jarred by the impact.

She considered her options as about the market area she landed their were now automatons moving haphazardly about as they mimicked the daily tasks of SimShanty's denizens. Curious to their plastifesh looking feel she meandered out of the way of a stilt legged one that was moving towards her and sidled up to another sitting on a box and tapping a knee as it mimicked playing a game of dice with two children kneeling before it.

Closing her mind, she stretched a hand out to it's side and began to bring the machine's coding to her mind. Seperating the strands of data until they formed the basis of it's present program and subroutines.

That was interesting, these modified droids were using the tranglang communications for their languages and carried a data link to a central station, so the droids programs could be switched over to other commands. If she could get to a repeater station... maybe she could change the program.

She blinked once or twice then accessed the Sand People Aggressor subroutine. Apparently it was one of the joke versions of programs applied to them. It had to be, as Moira could make no other meaning for once the behavior module was switched on that the droid would begin to act like a Sand People Warrior. Utilizing the telltale grunting cries of the desert people and rushing at heat sources it could not detect as having a connection to the upscom Link with a droid IFF.

Extending her senses further she found where on the droid such an uplink was attached to the rectannae module. Upon the unit's right shoulder, underneath the clothing. With a smile, she reached from behind under the moving droid's jacket top as it began it's next roll of the device and twisted it off it's mounting with a little adept use of dematerialization.

All while keeping a sharp watch on the surroundings as she noted if there was any change in behavior from her meddling.

There wasn't as she took the module and connected two of it's wires to her smartchrono as the visual matrix field began to subsume itself around the device. It took twenty seconds of Mental Gymnastics and force use to tease the uplink into coming online. Now giving *her* an IFF the droids would assume as one of their own.

She moved a few feet to triangulate which direction the signal was heading and factored it was near the lambda's direction. Which was a good place for it due to the height of the position. As she passed another droid she tapped it on the shoulder, using memory enhancement to do the exact same thing she did to access the first one. Only this time she included an added code of a change in the program.

The droid twitched once as its eyes shut down for a moment then restarted with a bit of a light as it began speaking in grunts and growls of the sandpeople tongue. Yet still went about it's business... at least until it saw some other person without an IFF tag. IF they did see someone they didn't know it would be a matter of them enacting their attack protocol and attempt to swarm the opponent where only a solid blow or hit with a blaster shot would deactivate them.

As Moira began making her way towards the lambda in the distance she began touching Droids as she went, implementing the new command with a brush upon each one in order to safeguard the places she had been while her own senses were wary at whether or not her quarry was in the area. If she could spot crystala alone, she certainly wouldn't tip off the mark by changing the programming of the droids in front of her in the misty streets. In this regards, she was taking a certain Director's words to heart while not directly doing anything that might belie her quarry's danger sense.

After all, if you had to find a needle. BURN the haystack!

Her chronometer read 6:35 as she began to see the bulk of the decommissioned subcapital about a hundred feet away.

Something was amiss, Crystala could tell almost immediately. The sounds of the sand people in the distance was an abnormality that told her Moira was in the market and, doubtlessly, tampering with the droids' programming. She shook her head. The girl was far too reliant upon her toys and gadgets, something that would pose problems for her later on and something Crystala felt she needed to correct. Thankfully, after a certain accident prone agent with a penchant for programming had finished tampering around with some of the droids aboard the Observer, safety protocols were put into place that could allow for override commands to be issued. Crystala picked up her comm bead and contacted the chief technician who oversaw the droids in the training center.

"Ah, Director, how can I be of service?"

"I'm doing a little lesson in the shanty town," Crystala began softly, knowing she would have to keep her conversation short lest Moira use her gadgets to get a fix on the communications signal and triangulate her position. "Do me a favor and initiate the override and treat anyone they come across matching Moira's description for the next six minutes as a hostile."

"Certainly. Give me a few seconds and... done."

"Also, I'm going to need you to kick up a small windstorm in here."

"Cloaking device?"

Crystala grinned as the fans were suddenly activated. Dust started to fly up, reducing visibility for everyone though it had the added effect of causing particles to pass into the cloaking field, causing Moira to appear as an invisible person-shaped hole in the small dust storm. A couple droids started to investigate and, seeing it as a strange anomaly that wouldn't be seen in every day life, started to panic. Suddenly a series of shrill cries went up in the distance as the droids suddenly all regarded Moira as an active threat as though she were rampaging through the town with light repeating blasters in either hand, firing wildly into the air like in those macho action holos. Panic quickly erupted in the town as people started running away from Moira, screaming for help. Crystala smiled and, taking the comm bead out of her ear, she casually left it on and tossed it into a nearby box before leaving the spaceport square. Several droids ran into the square behind Crystala as other droids looked at them, wondering what all the commotion was about. I forgot to ask if this room still had fake law enforcement droids set up, Crystala thought as she walked down another avenue, away from the spaceport that would take her to the main street which would lead back to the town entrance.

"Dagger of the ISIS? No, I am the hand that wields it!" - Director-General Endivain
"The quickest way to find the needle, burn the haystack!"

Moira cursed silently watching the dust about her swirl, her eyepiece zooming in on individual grains to examine them. Too uniform to be real dust, but otherwise convincing. For once she was glad to have the rebreather on as it would keep out the particles from exacerbating the healing injuries from her lungs.

Good enough though, for the inevitable headache it would bring as she tried to cast an illusion to simulate the change in the environment, as she had done for the mists, but apparently not fast enough as some of the local droids began to investigate thr area she had just vacated. She darted out of sight towards the nearest alley and let the stealth field flicker out, leaving her just as herself leaning against the wall as thr droid followed, just acting casual as she walked through up the environs, cutting sharply towards a main thoroughfare that lead back to the sign as her mind pondered distances and time it had taken for the change in the program to be implemented.

If she was going by the acoustic pattern alone someone would have been within twenty five meters of one of the affected droids that had been switching over to the new mode she had toggled. In retrospect, her goal of doing so was achieved.

The echani had forced a reaction of sorts that let her understand an area where her quarry had heard to make the change.

Though she might have to err on the side of fifty meters due to the potential of Crystala having better perceptions then the average person. Maybe more...

-her mental processes ground to a halt as she got her first visual of the woman moving through the street at a distance, her motions far smoother then any droid's.

She blinked and took a step out behind her, deciding to do things the olde fashioned way once her mark was sighted by just blending in the crowd and using the bodies as cover.

But her plans were dashed by the movement of a child like droid that stared at her a moment before letting out a scream that drew the attention of those around her.

Her senses flared over the droid:ghosting an approximation of it's programming to her mind. Technometry, wasn't mechu-deru after all. It wasn't a means of directly controlling a droid but rather just interfacing with technology.

The only thought in her mind at the time was, 'Why was that droid acting this way-' and then she caught a flash of the parameters flitting through it's processors, an assessment to react startled by any female with white hair and dark clothing.

A quick and dirty approximation of a target's identity-

"You Clever Gurl, Miss Crysta." she cursed as she sent a pulse of scrambling code into the machine and vanished back into the alley. This time sprinting faster as she went, leaving the sounds of investigating droids behind.

She turned a corner into a side alley that ran parrallel to the road.

Behind them both a voice came om the earpiece that was discarded. "Madame Director, I hate to interrupt but we have noted a peculiarty in the last program settings due to that training area's last scenario being set up by the Vice Director. Specifically that some of the droids were set up with live ammunition to go against him as well as two special droids being added to the roster that just got activated by a subroutine that are out of contact with our servers. It's not a matter of the safeties though I suggest an Abort on them with your override codes. Ma'am... Are you there? "

With no answer forthcoming, the voice on the other end of the line cursed and seemed to address someone off com, "I need a tactical team onhand for the simulation exercise room Number 3, and see if the Vice Director is areound for his override? What do you mean he is not on the Observer? Fierfek!"

~~~ooo~~~

The technician called up the IFF sensors in the simulation room as well as trying to call up the various other holocameras in the area, only to find he could get one but not the other as it seemed the holocameras were not recording. Maybe the audio feeds and pickups were still around that the commanders and the evaluating agents used in the environment were still up?

Most of those had a life sign detector, or a heartbeat sensor installed as a precaution during live fire exercises and right now ; glancing to a side screen where the relevant data was, he could definitively say that this scenario had become.

The law enforcement droids were less based of the protocol series ISI* used, and more synthskinned covered throwbacks to the BL-series battle legionaire droid.

A droid with fully articulated joints, a capacity to run at a speed of thirty kilometers per hour and usually possessed an armament of a AAP-11 blaster boxes mounted on their chests as well as several variations of finger blades for close combat purposes.

Most of the time they were set to stun and needed a direct override from anyone an Inquisitor level or higher to override such measures.

Unfortunately, it seemed the Vice Director, before being called off on business with the necessity had been planning a bit of his own training today. Planning that had included, not one but rather five twists that were activated for Inquisitorial level training only.

Training that had been activated by crystala using her codes and the Agent was quite sure this could be summed up as a communication error between Endivain and Tiberious, and he was having a hell of a time finding someone with a high enough override to shut down the extra parts of the simulation.

But that would take a while, and such gave him a bit of worry.

Five specific worries in fact.

The first was an apparently bad colored hair colored BL series with assassin droid programming copied from an HK-77 series that was to stalk after anyone in the area, proving a simulated counterpart to an NRI agent that would attempt to neutralize any non-droid sentient with the same shocking weaponry Crystala made available to the girl at the start.

Then among the law enforcement droids were two specially modified BL series. One having its normal weapons, and the other carrying its usual armament plus a plex missile launcher.

But the real worrisome thing in his mind was the schematics for two "special ordered" droids that were present to mimic the dangers of two potential jedi, with the reason given by the Vice Director was, 'I want to practice with a shiny lightbulb toy I was given.'

'Whatever that meant.' the agent didn't have a clue. All that was listed on their capabilities was a bit of equipment and their model series that seemed to be alarming enough. What were EG-5 droids anyways?

It wasn't any designation he had heard of before.

He tried calling up the feed into the droid's datastream link to try to get a better view of what was happening due to the main holocameras being down as the subroutine noted the presence of a person's heartbeat near the entrance to "simshanty" town.

Hoping it was the Director he depressed a button for an audio speaker nearby.

=======~~~ooo~~~=====
///CCL-21-96
//target spotted.

The metal automaton vaulted forwards, leaping iver rooftops as it tied into the subnet for the units responsible for "policing" Simshanty's fake populace. It's programming had been altered by none other then Vice Director Saereel Tiberius' himself for use in pushing his own studies as an Inquisitor further, only able to be deactivated by voice authorization.

Within its programming, the new target data, coupled with Director Endivains passcodes on the scenario had added a new point source to its subroutine.

///Director_and_Vice_Directors_should_not_get_flabby.rnpgm
//endivain.dat
//tiberius.dat
A new third reference file had been automatically added by the actions entitled,
//drakengard.dat

A bit of of the defense droids had closed in before, and had begun attempting to strike the target with stun batons and swipes as the mark evaded. Uncaring of the local IFF Signals, and the one overlaid with the target itself, it followed through on it's attack pattern subroutines as it raised the Plex Rocket to it's shoulder and fired.

Recalculating, it began the reloading process as the rocket veered slightly off course. The fireball of the explosion immolating several "police" droids, melting their chassis and melting the synthskinned limbs into melted slag.

Photoreceptors glowed. Evasion protocols were enacted at what seemed a giant sliver of dark ice pierced the swirling sands about it carving through it's chassis like butter as error messages began flashing warnings to it's central processor.

///CCL-21-96 's final relevant process was receiving a signal from it's counterpart CCL-23-82's that it had aquired the newly revealed third target.

And that CCL-20-86's aquisition of tatlrget one.

Tiberius' programming genius at it's finest.
=======~~~ooo~~~=====

From the sign post of SimShanty a fake rock would soon be projecting the sound of an agent's voice "Director, if you can hear me... There's been a slight snag! Some of Tiberius' personal altered training droids have been on queque for the training area today."

In the background of the village the sound of an explosion could be heard echoing through the sand and mists.

"Holocameras are off. Should we abort and send in a tactical team to secure them?"

A pair of colored cycling eyes would be interrupted by a flash of danger in the force as she leapt and twisted away from a blaster round. The blast arcing through where her head had been moments before, hitting and shorting out the speaker.

Cold eyes and senses would see a flash of same colored hair as her own diving back into cover. Her own voice being heard in mockery, "Die, Meatbag."